Little Sister
by Khiela Cadona
Summary: Penelope reconnects with her sister. Part 3 of 12 for Twelve Days Till Christmas 2011.


Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or Leverage.

A/N: Originally written for Dec 15th, 2011.  
For the purposes of this fic I gave Parker a "real" name.

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**Little Sister**

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"Are you all right, Garcia?" Penelope turned to face their resident genius and immediately noted the worry in his features. She inadvertently lifted her fajitas, as if to shield herself from any unwanted pity.

"I'm fine, Reid, it's just that..." she didn't know how to say it. It felt weird to even think about it, much less to say it aloud.

"Your sister?" There's something to be said about Reid's occasional bluntness.

"I, uh... Yeah, her," Penelope gave Reid a small smile, and then admitted, "Should I check her? Oh what I'm thinking!" she brought her hand to her face, "but you know, after Battle, I just can't sometimes help it," she almost whispered to herself.

She lifted her eyes to meet Reid's understanding ones, "Do you think it would-?" she waved her hand, not sure how to finish her question.

"Violate her trust?" Reid asked.

"Something like that," Penelope nodded.

Reid shook his head, "You could just do a little general searching, and stop if you feel uncomfortable."

"I suppose so... I just don't want to make our meeting more uncomfortable than it's bound to be."

"It's your decision, but I wouldn't think less of you if you did a search of her. How about simple Google search?" Reid was smiling at her. Penelope smiled back.

"Maybe I will, thanks junior G-man," she gave him a pat on the shoulder, "We better get back to work."

On her way to back to her office and to her computers, Penelope tried to weight her options, but the tiny fear in the back of her mind, ever since Jason Battle shot her couldn't be quieted. Maybe if she did like Reid suggested... Just a small Google search. Maybe her... _sister_... was doing the same?

"I'll do it," Penelope said under her breath, closing her eyes for a moment, before stepping in her office. She put her food on the table, for a moment forgotten.

Opening the search engine page she typed quickly, in her usual manner, "Monica Garcia" and pressed Enter before she could over think it.

She found only the article about her –their– parents car accident.

"_...leaving behind six children; Jared (22), Penelope (18), Garret (15), Liam (13), Joshua (11) and Monica (7)."_

Penelope had to bat her eyes furiously to keep the tears from falling, she had tried to keep in contact with her siblings, but the system had made it difficult with anyone else but Jared. She hadn't heard of Monica since she was nine, there had been an explosion at her current foster family's house and she'd just disappeared off the face of the Earth. It was only when she got a call from Jared telling her that he'd been contacted by Joshua who was looking for all his siblings that she'd learned Monica was alive. Joshua had found her. And now they were going to meet in Boston where Joshua, and apparently Monica, were currently living.

Penelope wasn't very surprised when the picture search didn't yield anything but the old family photo that had accompanied the article. It'd been a Christmas photograph, they were all wearing their Sunday best for the occasion, and you could see the Christmas tree on the left corner of the picture and the fire from few candles on the mantle piece behind them. All of them smiling, though Penelope herself was looking Jared from the corner of her eyes. She remembered that, she'd just teased him about his new girlfriend. She'd been just 17 at the time.

Shaking her head, Penelope dared to make the official search on Monica Garcia, only to find nothing after the explosion.

"Well, if this isn't little suspicious," Garcia muttered to the screen. Her stomach growling reminded her she had food to be eaten and reluctantly she left the information, or rather the lack of it, simmer on the back of her head.

x.x.x

"You can do this, Penelope, and if something goes wrong you have four brothers to help you. And you know many strong FBI agents. Relax. It's just your little sister you haven't seen in sixteen years, what's there to be scared of?" Penelope knew her pep talk hadn't done the desired effect and instead decided to use the inner mantra of "You'll be fine."

She rang the door bell, finally taking the time to really look at Joshua's house. It'd been tastefully decorated with Christmas lights. Before the door could be opened, she heard a distinctly British tilted voice remark, "Parker, you'll do fine. They're your family. Oh, look at those lovely fairy lights!"

Penelope turned to see two women, one dark haired and one blonde, standing at the end of the short driveway. Her eyes glued into the blonde and everything else seemed to disappear.

"Monica?" she croaked, not even really realizing how small her voice had come out as.

The blonde's head snapped to her and she seemed to go still. Penelope, on the other hand found herself moving towards them, only stilling few feet away.

"It's you, isn't it?" in some level Penelope registered that there were few tears making their way down her cheeks.

Monica – because, really, who else could it have been? – nodded, her eyes similarly stuck to Penelope's face.

"Penny?" she finally spoke, and at Penelope's nod, she suddenly moved with a feline grace and Garcia found herself hugging her little sister for the first time since Monica's eight birthday.

"Well, isn't this fetching," the woman Monica had come with remarked, smiling softly at them, "how about we head inside?" she gestured towards the open door where Penelope could see her brothers looking at them with grins on their faces.

"Oh, of course," Penelope drew in a calming breath, "I am Penelope Garcia, nice to meet you."

"Sophie Devereaux, likewise."

"You can call me Parker," Monica told Penelope, "I go by Parker, these days."

Once again the two sisters stilled, looking at each other, Penelope finally breaking the silence, "You took mom's name?"

Mutely her little sister nodded and Penelope smiled at her.

"Penny, Mona, c'mon! I'm starving," a voice, distinctively Liam's, called out. The two blonde's shared a smile and headed for the house, leaving Sophie standing on the curb, smiling.

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**A/N:** Garcia has said she has four brothers, I just named them and randomly assigned ages.. Also, it's been showed in Leverage that Parker somehow blew that house up, and there never was said those were her real parents, and that she was living of the streets when Archie Leach found her.  
Then there's the mention of Parker having had a brother, Nick, let's say he was a foster sibling, or something?

Is "fairy lights" just a British English term? 'Cause I had to bring Sophie in just get that word from the prompt used... The words that are underlined were requirements in the prompt, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, please review.


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